


Tea and Violets

by mylordshesacactus



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: ....some implied sexual kink, F/F, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Sexual Kink, Non-Sexual Submission, Power Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 09:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8281724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: Christine's suitors send her roses.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elizabethdove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethdove/gifts).



  
An operation of the sheer size and complexity of an opera house doesn’t lend itself to privacy. 

With so many people living and working here there’s simply too much traffic, too many casual eyes. And leisure time is hard enough to come by, as well. Still, there are moments and hours of rest, where their time is their own; and no building this size is without its secrets. Nooks and crannies, storage spaces forgotten for decades. And they have lived here since they were children. Together and alone, they have managed to find more than a few.

Meg sets the access panel back in place, and shivers as she stands.

No matter how noble the establishment, an attic is still an attic. It’s  _ cold,  _ dusty, the chill and the damp sinking into the wood. There is simply no avoiding a draft.

Christine shouldn’t be here.

She is a lead soprano, or at least she still was an hour ago; Meg is reasonably certain she and the rest of Paris would have noticed, if Carlotta had come back again. A frigid, musty attic space is the worst possible thing for her voice. If she catches cold…

Her doubts melt in the warmth of Christine’s smile as she looks up in surprise, setting aside the book she’d been reading and sitting straight.

“Meg!”

It never fails, never, how happy and unguarded her name sounds on Christine Daa é’s tongue.

“I didn’t expect you so soon,” she continues, in that low, sweet voice that makes Meg burn from the inside out. She unwraps the scarf from around her neck--good, Meg thinks, guilt fading, good, at least Christine is staying warm--and holds out an arm as Meg crosses to her side.

Meg’s eyes close with a sigh as Christine throws her cloak around them both, holding her close in the dim light from a slatted window.

“I came quickly,” she murmurs in response, turning without opening her eyes to press a kiss to Christine’s throat. After a moment, she opens her eyes and looks up at her. “What if you got tired of waiting?”

Christine could stop time with her eyes alone, if she had half a mind to. The attic certainly doesn’t feel cold anymore.

She doesn’t look away. Those big, dark eyes are wide and earnest as she takes Meg’s hand between hers.

“I would wait for you forever,” she whispers. Delicate lashes fall as she brings Meg’s hand to her lips, kisses her fingers. Meg can’t resist anymore, reaches out with her free hand and draws the backs of her fingers along Christine’s cheek. Christine sighs and presses into the contact, still holding Meg’s fingers loosely in her own as she slips off the windowsill. She looks up, dark eyes shining, almost worshipful, and Meg can do nothing but try to calm her fluttering heart as she leans to kiss her.

Christine shouldn’t be here.

But in a moment like this, she can’t bring herself to say so. Because with the sky grey and cold and Meg Giry no one of any real importance, the lead soprano of the Opera Populaire, the ethereal angel of a rising star who captivates everyone around her, adored by all of Paris, folds to her knees for  _ her. _

* * *

“Meg,” Christine laughs. “Keep up.”

Meg grabs her hand and giggles as she tries to slow her down, hurrying through the streets. Christine always uses her rare days off to walk to the cemetery, and leave a token for her father; Meg generally uses hers to get a bit of shopping done, get something to eat, walk in the park. In the past years, they’ve combined the two.

Christine stops tugging at her only because the crowd has gotten too thick, and Meg stumbles and bumps into her. Christine catches her.

Meg is, briefly, grateful for the crowded sidewalk forcing them to press together. In a kinder world, she would stay that way forever.

Christine’s fingers running through her hair say she’s had the same thought. But the crowd parts, and they step away, and Christine takes her hand more gently and says, “Come! We’re almost there, if there’s anything left by the time you get through the door.”

Meg swats her with a paper-wrapped packet of ribbon, which is not nearly substantial enough to be satisfying.

She couldn’t be truly irritated with Christine if she tried. Certainly not today. Christine is too happy, too genuinely bone-deep happy. Her smile comes easily, her eyes twinkle; her face is so rarely animated that these moments are treasures, every one of them.

Their destination is a flower shop. Christine grows quiet as they look at the options, but not melancholy. She shares distant, fond stories with Meg as she buys a modest little bouquet; memories, things that make her look back with a smile.

Every time they have a day to themselves, they make this journey. Meg buys sweet bread; Christine buys a bundle of flowers, and they sit on the steps of her father’s mausoleum and visit for a while. She always leaves more steady, more content, than she came.

Every time, the bouquets are different, because her father loved being surprised--except for one constant.

Every time, Christine picks the violets out of the arrangement, and Meg comes home with a bundle of purple flowers tucked behind her ear.

* * *

Christine’s suitors send her roses, most of them.

Despite the alarmed, intensely warning looks from her mother, no one has remarked on Meg’s habit of slipping into Christine’s dressing room after performances. They have been inseparable since childhood. With Christine’s spectacular rise, it’s only natural that her closest friend should be eager to congratulate her.

The less generous suggest that Meg is getting a secondhand taste of glory. She ignores them.

With these precious triumph-heady moments also some of the only times they’re guaranteed a certain level of privacy, they can't afford not to make the most of them.  Christine’s suitors send her roses, and Meg locks the door and ducks between the overflowing piles of red and pink and yellow petals to take Christine’s face between her hands and kiss her, flushed with pride and exhilaration.

She’s touched by the men who send yellow roses, at least, for their lack of romantic connotation. The choice allows a certain degree of separation, a respect for Christine’s by now well-known shyness and desire for privacy.

The single red rose, bound in black ribbon, has not appeared in over a month.

Christine smiles and returns her kiss.

“Hello, Meg,” she whispers.

Meg brushes dark curls out of Christine’s face. “You were magnificent,” she tells her. “Half the audience has fallen in love with you.”

“And not only the male half,” Christine says with a flash of humor, completing Meg’s old joke. Her smile falters, but she recovers a moment later and pulls Meg further into the room to kiss her again.

“No,” Meg agrees. “Most of those, Maman has already beaten off with a stick.”

Literally, in some cases.

Meg’s mother is an unwise woman to cross.

Christine’s mouth on her jaw drives any thought of her mother or of young opera-going men far from her mind.

Meg looks up at her, aware that she must be wearing the most slavishly doe-eyed expression in the world but too in love to control it. “You come alive when you sing,” she says warmly. “I don’t see how anyone could help but love you.”

She sees it again. That brief disconnect, some of the joy sapping from the moment.

“So I’m told,” she says, as sweet as ever but her smile struggling to remain in place, and Meg has to reach up and put a hand against her cheek to stop her from pulling away.

She almost asks what’s wrong, except that suddenly it’s all too obvious, and she feels as stupid as some people have always called her.

Meg smiles, holds Christine still so that she keeps looking her in the eyes.

“They don’t know anything,” she says softly. Her thumb gently strokes Christine’s temple. “I loved you for years before I ever heard you sing.”

Christine is still for a moment, then smiles naturally again.

“I know, Meg,” she says. Soft. Earnest. Trusting. “I know.”

* * *

They have to be careful.

The danger is proportional to the importance of whoever might suspect, of whoever might catch them. While there is only suspicion, or a perception of perhaps a particularly close friendship, they are safe; a single crude rumor from an equal, if there were no evidence, might cause some suspicion for a time, but denial would save them. Christine is beloved by too many to ruin her career over what would be seen as vindictive slander; Meg herself is insignificant enough to be seen as collateral damage in an attack on her friend, and her mother is respected enough to afford her some small protection.

But any real discovery, any significant exposure--carelessness will kill them both. Casually fond of Christine as the management might be, no one would continue to allow her in their establishment, if they knew. And Madame Giry is not  _ that  _ respected.

And yet the strangest thing in many ways is how little they sometimes have to hide. People are so often willing to see only what they expect.

Or, sometimes, they have drifted so far off in troubled thoughts that they don’t seem to see much of anything.

“Christine,” Meg calls gently, pitching her voice just loud enough to be heard over the background noise of the dormitory. She’s concerned, but not surprised, when she gets no answer. 

Christine is fiddling with her cuffs, eyes distant. She has always been a dreamer; sometimes even when she looks a Meg whispering how beautiful she is something about her is a thousand miles away, chasing the stars. But this, this is not daydreaming, or simple melancholy. Christine is drawn and tense, glancing every so often at the walls and ceilings, shoulders tight. Meg is no philosopher; but she thinks it takes very little to guess what has her so nervous.

_ “Christine,” _ she says again, more insistently, and this time Christine blinks and jumps slightly, jarred back into reality. A few of the girls glance over, but with nothing out of the ordinary going on they soon go back to what they were doing.

Christine meets Meg’s eyes and gives a thin, forced smile.

“I’m fine, Meg,” she says quietly. As if Meg can’t hear the tremble in her voice, the rough edge of fear.

Meg gets up, crosses to Christine’s bed and pulls the covers around her.

“What is it?” she asks.

Christine turns her face away; after a long moment, barely audible, she breathes, “It’s been two months, Meg.” She looks miserable. “He must be planning something. He must be waiting…”

Meg reaches out instinctively, stilling Christine’s hands where she’s rubbing at her own wrists.

_ You don’t know that,  _ she wants to say. She wants to say  _ You’re safe now, he won’t harm you, I won’t let anything hurt you. _ But she’s never spoken to the Phantom, never spoken to Christine’s angel. Perhaps Christine has good reason to suspect. She cannot offer the woman she loves protection, not really. She’s a ballerina.

But this worrying, this tension, all the blame for all the Opera Populaire’s misfortunes resting on her shoulders, Christine can’t bear it forever. It will destroy her.

Meg weighs the options, glances warily at the other girls. 

“Christine,” she says, softly, for her lover’s ears alone. “Would you like to make us some tea?”

After a pause, Christine looks over at her and smiles. It’s shaky, still pained; but at least this time it’s real.

It’s a simple thing, when Christine’s fear gets the best of her. A task simple enough that she doesn’t have to worry about making a mistake; something she can perform in a communal area so she’s never alone, something she can do with her hands, with a concrete immediate goal.

Something that makes Meg happy. That’s all Christine needs, really, and it’s a gift so precious Meg can’t help feeling undeserving. She doesn’t trust herself to hold Christine’s heart in her hands. She doesn’t trust herself not to hurt her.

Christine’s hands shake, serving the tea. But she’s breathing more easily, the muscles in her shoulders more relaxed.

Too many people expect too much of her, ask for too much, and Christine is too kind and too eager to please, to help, to pay everyone back for their kindnesses. She can never refuse them anything, but she is only human. For tonight, the only expectation she has to worry about is whether she can make tea.

Meg’s fingers cover hers as she accepts her cup, and Christine still looks anxious until Meg takes a sip and smiles.

“It’s perfect,” she mouths, because of course it is, and Christine finally smiles back.

“You were wonderful in rehearsal,” she says. Quiet, as always; but almost a conversational tone, just enough to be overheard by the others without attracting real attention. 

Meg thanks her over another sip of tea, and Christine leans in a bit closer. Her tone is neutral, friendly; but her eyes plead.

“Your feet must be sore,” she says.

Meg’s mother would skin her alive for being so careless, if she were here.

But she’s not here, and Christine is, desperate and frightened.

“My feet  _ always  _ hurt,” Meg answers, and abject relief crosses Christine’s face as she sinks to the floor and rests her forehead against Meg’s knee.

It’s not safe for her to kneel, so she doesn’t, technically; but she sits back against her own bed, gentle fingers massaging Meg’s calf and ankle, open and vulnerable, at peace in a way Meg hasn’t seen in months. And Meg, as unobtrusively as possible, has made her own preparations for this, while Christine was busy. No one here cares enough to wonder why little Meg Giry decided to grab the vase from her bedside table and move it to her friend’s.

Christine sits at Meg’s feet, and Meg weaves violets into her hair.


End file.
